Thanks for another great CMJ Music Marathon—See you in 2015!

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Dan Deacon Launches New Interactive Concert App

If you’ve ever been to a Dan Deacon show, you know that he’s all about audience participation. Today he’s announced that he’s found a new way to interact, beyond his usual placing his soundboard in the crowd and teaching everyone the bridge dance: He’s taking over your smartphones.

The new Dan Deacon app was designed with main programmer Keith Lea, and according to the public-access-style video above, it “turns your screen into a light show, your speaker into a musical instrument and your L.E.D. into a strobe.” Preliminary explorations of the free download, available in the iTunes Store, have revealed three main buttons. Clicking “I’m At A Show” leads to a screen that says it’s “Listening for calibration tones,” which is how Deacon will handle the synching in each venue. This process is said to require no WiFi or data collection, so phone service black holes shouldn’t be a problem. The “I Want More” button leads to helpful things like tour dates and “Mouth Sounds,” which seems to measure the decibels in the room…or something. The third main button, “Instrument,” lets you play with your own little synthesizer, which is a mixture of fun and aggravating, depending on your skills.

Deacon will launch the app at his show tonight in Cleveland, as part of the tour to support his new album, America. Will this actually work without WiFi? Will the lights blink in harmony? Will this just result in a lot of people losing their smartphones at Deacon’s notoriously raucous shows? His tour dates are below in case you want to find out.